UK's double standards means death for many
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw provoked fury among members of the ruling Labour Party when he announced new export guidelines which allowed the sale of parts of military equipment to countries such as Indonesia and Israel.
'These new criteria allow arms components to go to a whole host of countries where human rights abuses are common,' Rebecca Peters of the International Action Network on Small Arms said.
"The government has put lives at risk by setting up false and dangerous double standards. Whether a machine gun comes in pieces or ready-made, the suffering it can cause in the wrong hands is just the same," said Justin Forsyth, Oxfam's director of policy.
Thursday, February 26, 2004
CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE
Prof sees light at end of death's tunnel
"When you look at the totality of the data, the simplest and most parsimonious explanation that accounts for the largest amount of data is the survival of consciousness hypothesis," said Gary Schwartz, a UA professor and director of the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science.
For seven years he has been conducting afterlife experiments and research that he believes prove the survival of human consciousness after death.
"When you look at the totality of the data, the simplest and most parsimonious explanation that accounts for the largest amount of data is the survival of consciousness hypothesis," said Gary Schwartz, a UA professor and director of the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science.
For seven years he has been conducting afterlife experiments and research that he believes prove the survival of human consciousness after death.
MYSTERIOUS DNA
Crops 'widely contaminated' by genetically modified DNA
US scientists are warning of a potentially 'serious risk to human health' after the discovery that traditional varieties of major American food crops are widely contaminated by DNA sequences from GM crops.
Crops engineered to produce industrial chemicals and drugs - so-called 'pharm' crops - could already be poisoning ostensibly GM-free crops grown for food, warns the study by the Washington-based Union for Concerned Scientists, released on Monday.
'If genes find their way from pharm crops to ordinary corn, they or their products could wind up in drug-laced corn flakes,' says the report's co-author, UCS microbiologist Margaret Mellon.
US scientists are warning of a potentially 'serious risk to human health' after the discovery that traditional varieties of major American food crops are widely contaminated by DNA sequences from GM crops.
Crops engineered to produce industrial chemicals and drugs - so-called 'pharm' crops - could already be poisoning ostensibly GM-free crops grown for food, warns the study by the Washington-based Union for Concerned Scientists, released on Monday.
'If genes find their way from pharm crops to ordinary corn, they or their products could wind up in drug-laced corn flakes,' says the report's co-author, UCS microbiologist Margaret Mellon.
POT AND KETTLE
Israeli minister sounds like a Nazi
Israli Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim, on why much of local, regional and world terrorism is directed by extremist Muslims, asked, 'What is it about Islam as a whole and the Palestinians in particular? Is it some form of cultural deprivation? Is it some genetic defect? There is something that defies explanation in this continued murderousness.'
[Political opponent Jamal Zahalka said in response that "whoever says that Palestinian behavior is caused by a genetic defect has a brain defect himself and the values of a racist fascist. Boim is giving racism a bad name, and returning to the same kind of primitive, sickening and dangerous racism from which the Jews have suffered for many generations." Zahalka said.]
Israli Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim, on why much of local, regional and world terrorism is directed by extremist Muslims, asked, 'What is it about Islam as a whole and the Palestinians in particular? Is it some form of cultural deprivation? Is it some genetic defect? There is something that defies explanation in this continued murderousness.'
[Political opponent Jamal Zahalka said in response that "whoever says that Palestinian behavior is caused by a genetic defect has a brain defect himself and the values of a racist fascist. Boim is giving racism a bad name, and returning to the same kind of primitive, sickening and dangerous racism from which the Jews have suffered for many generations." Zahalka said.]
EARTH CHANGES
Earth almost put on asteroid impact alert
Astronomers have revealed how they came within minutes of alerting the world to a potential asteroid strike last month, which had the potentially to have resulkted in a higher death toll than the 11 September attacks on New York's World Trade Centre.
Some scientists believed on 13 January that a 500m-wide object, later designated 2004 AS1, had a one-in-four chance of hitting the planet within 36 hours.
Astronomers have revealed how they came within minutes of alerting the world to a potential asteroid strike last month, which had the potentially to have resulkted in a higher death toll than the 11 September attacks on New York's World Trade Centre.
Some scientists believed on 13 January that a 500m-wide object, later designated 2004 AS1, had a one-in-four chance of hitting the planet within 36 hours.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
FORTUNE COOKIES
And that's the way the cookie crumbles...
Eight people in Brazil won the lottery after getting the numbers from fortune cookies.
The Caixa Economica Federal Bank launched an investigation because they were all from the same region. Eight of the 15 people who won the lottery in the north-east of Brazil told investigators they got the numbers from fortune cookies.
The bank found out that the numbers had appeared in fortune cookies sold by the same company to more than 50 restaurants in the region. The lucky numbers were 1, 13, 33, 38, 45 and 56. Each winner got R700 000.
Fong Yu, the owner of the cookie company, said: "The number combination is made by a machine randomly and can generate up to 171 combinations. The same combinations have been printed since 1996 and since then 29 million cookies have been sold."
Eight people in Brazil won the lottery after getting the numbers from fortune cookies.
The Caixa Economica Federal Bank launched an investigation because they were all from the same region. Eight of the 15 people who won the lottery in the north-east of Brazil told investigators they got the numbers from fortune cookies.
The bank found out that the numbers had appeared in fortune cookies sold by the same company to more than 50 restaurants in the region. The lucky numbers were 1, 13, 33, 38, 45 and 56. Each winner got R700 000.
Fong Yu, the owner of the cookie company, said: "The number combination is made by a machine randomly and can generate up to 171 combinations. The same combinations have been printed since 1996 and since then 29 million cookies have been sold."
JURASSIC EGG
Workers dig up dinosaur egg from Jurassic age
A dinosaur egg weighing more than five kilograms and measuring 30cm in diameter has been found in western India, government officials said on Monday. The egg was discovered by telecommunications workers digging in the town of Balasinor, in the south of Gujarat state.
'Two feet from the ground, we struck an oblong stone. On breaking the stone, a football-sized egg was found. It is white with some orange spots on it,' said a telco spokesman.
A dinosaur egg weighing more than five kilograms and measuring 30cm in diameter has been found in western India, government officials said on Monday. The egg was discovered by telecommunications workers digging in the town of Balasinor, in the south of Gujarat state.
'Two feet from the ground, we struck an oblong stone. On breaking the stone, a football-sized egg was found. It is white with some orange spots on it,' said a telco spokesman.
MYSTERIOUS DNA
India's twins pose DNA puzzle
Scientists from around the world are flocking to a small Indian village to try to find out why an extraordinarily large number of identical twins are being born there.
One in 10 births in Mohammad Pur Umri, near Allahabad, involves twins, most of them identical. Looking at the faces of Umri's residents, you can be forgiven for wondering if you have stepped onto the set of a sci-fi film on cloning.
Scientists in hi-tech labs thousands of miles away from the village dust bowl of Umri will try to match DNA strains, seeking an answer to the baffling genetic puzzle.
Scientists from around the world are flocking to a small Indian village to try to find out why an extraordinarily large number of identical twins are being born there.
One in 10 births in Mohammad Pur Umri, near Allahabad, involves twins, most of them identical. Looking at the faces of Umri's residents, you can be forgiven for wondering if you have stepped onto the set of a sci-fi film on cloning.
Scientists in hi-tech labs thousands of miles away from the village dust bowl of Umri will try to match DNA strains, seeking an answer to the baffling genetic puzzle.
CLOAK AND DAGGER
'Kelly was murdered' says UK intelligence insider
Michael Shrimpton, a UK national security lawyer -- speaking with impeccable credentials, including contributions to the Journal for International Security Affairs and having previously given a closed-doors confidential briefing the US Senate Intelligence Committee -- exploded the much-reported myth that Dr Kelly had taken his own life on July 17, 2003.
With apparent backing from the organisations whose members he claims to speak for, Shrimpton presented their view that Dr Kelly had been murdered by a team of assassins and the charade of an apparent suicide was then played out to cover this up.
He spoke of the probable method of Kelly's death, the group which most likely carried out the assassination, who arranged it and finally where the responsibility lies. Additionally, he explained the political context and motive for Kelly's murder.
Mr Shrimpton said the deed was most likely carried out by the French external security organisation, DGSE. He went further by suggesting that the hit squad -- composed of Iraqis from the former regime's Mukhabarat intelligence organisation -- was flown into Corsica a week before the murder. He doubts that any of the hit-squad are still alive.
According to Shrimpton, Kelly was murdered because he had been talking to the press and there was a fear of what else he might discuss with journalists. Furthermore, Kelly was due to return to Iraq and may have learned fresh information on that trip which Whitehall could not afford to trust him with.
[The story has been effectively censored by the British Press, who according to Shrimpton are concerned about losing the pro-Euro Tony Blair as Prime Minister were they to publish details of Kelly's assassination. Blair's departure, he says, could threaten Britain's proposed adoption of the Euro as the national currency. Read the transcript here.]
Michael Shrimpton, a UK national security lawyer -- speaking with impeccable credentials, including contributions to the Journal for International Security Affairs and having previously given a closed-doors confidential briefing the US Senate Intelligence Committee -- exploded the much-reported myth that Dr Kelly had taken his own life on July 17, 2003.
With apparent backing from the organisations whose members he claims to speak for, Shrimpton presented their view that Dr Kelly had been murdered by a team of assassins and the charade of an apparent suicide was then played out to cover this up.
He spoke of the probable method of Kelly's death, the group which most likely carried out the assassination, who arranged it and finally where the responsibility lies. Additionally, he explained the political context and motive for Kelly's murder.
Mr Shrimpton said the deed was most likely carried out by the French external security organisation, DGSE. He went further by suggesting that the hit squad -- composed of Iraqis from the former regime's Mukhabarat intelligence organisation -- was flown into Corsica a week before the murder. He doubts that any of the hit-squad are still alive.
According to Shrimpton, Kelly was murdered because he had been talking to the press and there was a fear of what else he might discuss with journalists. Furthermore, Kelly was due to return to Iraq and may have learned fresh information on that trip which Whitehall could not afford to trust him with.
[The story has been effectively censored by the British Press, who according to Shrimpton are concerned about losing the pro-Euro Tony Blair as Prime Minister were they to publish details of Kelly's assassination. Blair's departure, he says, could threaten Britain's proposed adoption of the Euro as the national currency. Read the transcript here.]
OUR ALIEN MASTERS
Bush, cocaine and an unpleasant discharge
During the second week of February 2004, press secretary Scott McClellan defended President Bush’s spotty National Guard service record by stolidly repeating the mantra that Bush had met his National Guard obligations. However veteran journalist Helen Thomas opened up a new line of questioning that must have given McClellan an eerie sense of being trapped in a time-warp.
She asked: Did the President ever have to take time off from Guard duty to do community service? McClelland's efforts to kill the line of questioning is almost comic.
The same article says three sources told biographer J. H. Hatfield that Bush was performing community service on the orders of a judge.
A Yale classmate said, 'George W. was arrested for possession of cocaine in 1972, but due to his father's connections, the entire record was expunged by a state judge whom the older Bush helped get elected. It was one of those 'behind closed doors in the judges' chambers' kind of thing between the old man and one of his Texas cronies who owed him a favor ... There's only a handful of us that know the truth.'
During the second week of February 2004, press secretary Scott McClellan defended President Bush’s spotty National Guard service record by stolidly repeating the mantra that Bush had met his National Guard obligations. However veteran journalist Helen Thomas opened up a new line of questioning that must have given McClellan an eerie sense of being trapped in a time-warp.
She asked: Did the President ever have to take time off from Guard duty to do community service? McClelland's efforts to kill the line of questioning is almost comic.
The same article says three sources told biographer J. H. Hatfield that Bush was performing community service on the orders of a judge.
A Yale classmate said, 'George W. was arrested for possession of cocaine in 1972, but due to his father's connections, the entire record was expunged by a state judge whom the older Bush helped get elected. It was one of those 'behind closed doors in the judges' chambers' kind of thing between the old man and one of his Texas cronies who owed him a favor ... There's only a handful of us that know the truth.'
NEW WORLD ORDER
Americans would pay to watch bin Laden die
A national telephone poll of more than 1000 people in the US aged 18 or older asked respondents who they would most likely pay to watch executed if executions were shown on pay-per-view television. Bin Laden, accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was named by 21 per cent of those polled. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was named by 11 per cent.
Thirty-seven per cent of those polled said they did not think executions should be televised.
A national telephone poll of more than 1000 people in the US aged 18 or older asked respondents who they would most likely pay to watch executed if executions were shown on pay-per-view television. Bin Laden, accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was named by 21 per cent of those polled. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was named by 11 per cent.
Thirty-seven per cent of those polled said they did not think executions should be televised.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
MYSTERIOUS DNA
Magnetic fields might damage brain cell DNA
Two UW researchers say prolonged exposure to magnetic fields created by electricity can damage brain cell DNA.
The research by bioengineering professors Henry Lai and Narendra Singh on lab rats found that continued exposure to magnetic fields can cause brain DNA cells to self destruct.
The amount of the low-level fields was lower than that generated by an electric hair dryer or shaver. (This applies only to appliances which use alternating current. Rechargeable or battery powered devices do not generate similar fields.)
The finding cannot automatically be considered as posing concern for humans, although brain DNA is intrinsically similar across all species.
Two UW researchers say prolonged exposure to magnetic fields created by electricity can damage brain cell DNA.
The research by bioengineering professors Henry Lai and Narendra Singh on lab rats found that continued exposure to magnetic fields can cause brain DNA cells to self destruct.
The amount of the low-level fields was lower than that generated by an electric hair dryer or shaver. (This applies only to appliances which use alternating current. Rechargeable or battery powered devices do not generate similar fields.)
The finding cannot automatically be considered as posing concern for humans, although brain DNA is intrinsically similar across all species.
COMPOUND INTEREST
DuPont's C-8 chemical pervades the planet
A little-known manmade chemical is found in the tissue of living things around the globe. It is in the flesh of dolphins and cormorants off the Italian coast. It is in 5 percent of the bread, green beans and ground beef sampled in supermarkets in southern states. It is in the blood of up to 96 percent of people in the United States, a study suggests. The chemical is known as C-8.
C-8 is used to make the DuPont Co.'s Teflon that coats cookware. It is also released in the decomposition of fluorinated telomers, a chemical used to make some fast-food wrappers resistant to grease. Teflon and telomers are part of a family of fluorinated compounds pioneered and dominated by DuPont.
A little-known manmade chemical is found in the tissue of living things around the globe. It is in the flesh of dolphins and cormorants off the Italian coast. It is in 5 percent of the bread, green beans and ground beef sampled in supermarkets in southern states. It is in the blood of up to 96 percent of people in the United States, a study suggests. The chemical is known as C-8.
C-8 is used to make the DuPont Co.'s Teflon that coats cookware. It is also released in the decomposition of fluorinated telomers, a chemical used to make some fast-food wrappers resistant to grease. Teflon and telomers are part of a family of fluorinated compounds pioneered and dominated by DuPont.
WEIRD SCIENCE
Spooky subatomic behavior seen on grander scale
Eight decades after one of the weirdest discoveries in the history of science -- that subatomic matter is wavelike -- Austrian scientists are studying the same phenomenon on a much bigger scale, in giant molecules of carbon.
Such research is more dramatic evidence that the spooky phenomena of quantum physics aren't confined to the infinitesimally tiny world within the atom. In fact, quantum effects influence objects much, much bigger than atoms, possibly even important molecules in the human body.
Eight decades after one of the weirdest discoveries in the history of science -- that subatomic matter is wavelike -- Austrian scientists are studying the same phenomenon on a much bigger scale, in giant molecules of carbon.
Such research is more dramatic evidence that the spooky phenomena of quantum physics aren't confined to the infinitesimally tiny world within the atom. In fact, quantum effects influence objects much, much bigger than atoms, possibly even important molecules in the human body.
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
Western appetite for diamonds fuels rape in central Africa
Six-year-old Shashir was playing outside her home near Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), when armed militia appeared. The terrified child was carried kicking and screaming into the bush. There, she was pinned down and gang-raped. Sexually savaged and bleeding from multiple wounds, she lay there after the attack, how long no one knows, but she was close to starving when finally found. Her attackers, who'd disappeared back into the bush, wiped out her village as effectively as a biblical plague of locusts.
'Why do they rape a child?' asks Marie-Madeleine Kisoni, a Congolese counselor who works with raped women and children. 'We don't understand. There's a spirit of bestiality here now. I've seen 2- and 3-year-olds raped. The rebels want to kill us, but it's more painful to kill the spirit instead.'
Rape has become a defining characteristic of the five-year war in the DRC, says Anneke Van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch. So, too, has mutilation of the victims. "Last year, I was stunned when a 30-year-old woman in North Kivu had her lips and ears cut off and eyes gouged out after she was raped, so she couldn't identify or testify against her attackers. Now, we are seeing more and more such cases," she says. As the rebels constantly seek new ways to terrorize, their barbarity becomes more frenzied.
[King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence
Of the Europeans who scrambled for control of Africa in the 19th century, Belgium's King Leopold ll left arguably the largest and most horrid legacy of all.
He turned his "Congo Free State" into a massive labour camp, made a fortune for himself from the harvest of its wild rubber, and contributed in a large way to the death of perhaps 10 million innocent people. ]
Six-year-old Shashir was playing outside her home near Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), when armed militia appeared. The terrified child was carried kicking and screaming into the bush. There, she was pinned down and gang-raped. Sexually savaged and bleeding from multiple wounds, she lay there after the attack, how long no one knows, but she was close to starving when finally found. Her attackers, who'd disappeared back into the bush, wiped out her village as effectively as a biblical plague of locusts.
'Why do they rape a child?' asks Marie-Madeleine Kisoni, a Congolese counselor who works with raped women and children. 'We don't understand. There's a spirit of bestiality here now. I've seen 2- and 3-year-olds raped. The rebels want to kill us, but it's more painful to kill the spirit instead.'
Rape has become a defining characteristic of the five-year war in the DRC, says Anneke Van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch. So, too, has mutilation of the victims. "Last year, I was stunned when a 30-year-old woman in North Kivu had her lips and ears cut off and eyes gouged out after she was raped, so she couldn't identify or testify against her attackers. Now, we are seeing more and more such cases," she says. As the rebels constantly seek new ways to terrorize, their barbarity becomes more frenzied.
[King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence
Of the Europeans who scrambled for control of Africa in the 19th century, Belgium's King Leopold ll left arguably the largest and most horrid legacy of all.
He turned his "Congo Free State" into a massive labour camp, made a fortune for himself from the harvest of its wild rubber, and contributed in a large way to the death of perhaps 10 million innocent people. ]
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
US military building a virtual Earth
The US Army is building a second version of Earth on computer to help it prepare for conflicts around the world.
The detailed simulation will be drawn from a real-world terrain database and will be drawn to the same scale as the original.
The software Earth is being created for the US Army by gaming company There, which is currently working on a virtual world for gamers.
The US Army is building a second version of Earth on computer to help it prepare for conflicts around the world.
The detailed simulation will be drawn from a real-world terrain database and will be drawn to the same scale as the original.
The software Earth is being created for the US Army by gaming company There, which is currently working on a virtual world for gamers.
Monday, February 23, 2004
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
NATO radio towers cause residents' garage doors to jam
Last week, NATO workers erected security and communications towers in the area in advance of this week's defense ministers' conference.
By 9 a.m. Friday morning, all 10 lines at Overhead Door Company of Colorado Springs were lit up with calls complaining that their garage-door openers had jammed.
More than 400 calls from frantic, frustrated and flustered residents came on that day alone. They haven't stopped since, said the company's receptionist, Tina Oetken.
Last week, NATO workers erected security and communications towers in the area in advance of this week's defense ministers' conference.
By 9 a.m. Friday morning, all 10 lines at Overhead Door Company of Colorado Springs were lit up with calls complaining that their garage-door openers had jammed.
More than 400 calls from frantic, frustrated and flustered residents came on that day alone. They haven't stopped since, said the company's receptionist, Tina Oetken.
NEW WORLD ORDER
US 'negation' policy in space raises concerns abroad
The US's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all US spy satellites, the National Reconnaissance Office, is talking openly with the US Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time?not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.
If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."
The US's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all US spy satellites, the National Reconnaissance Office, is talking openly with the US Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time?not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.
If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."
EARTH CHANGES
Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document also posits that the planet is currently above sustainable population levels.
[The Guardian also quotes Greenpeace's Rob Gueterbock: "You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue.".]
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document also posits that the planet is currently above sustainable population levels.
[The Guardian also quotes Greenpeace's Rob Gueterbock: "You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue.".]
PROPAGANDA CENTRAL
Cyberhack Drudge jumps the gun
It’s interesting that an unsubstantiated, un-sourced, non-story about Democratic front-runner John Kerry, which soon dominated right-wing radio, came as George W. Bush was whirling in the center of an increasingly well-sourced story regarding his past military service and his having gone AWOL. Loyal soldier Drudge, who delighted in exposing Bill Clinton’s sex life, seemed to spin into action to try to save Bush, perhaps fed information from Karl Rove’s right-wing smear machine.
It’s interesting that an unsubstantiated, un-sourced, non-story about Democratic front-runner John Kerry, which soon dominated right-wing radio, came as George W. Bush was whirling in the center of an increasingly well-sourced story regarding his past military service and his having gone AWOL. Loyal soldier Drudge, who delighted in exposing Bill Clinton’s sex life, seemed to spin into action to try to save Bush, perhaps fed information from Karl Rove’s right-wing smear machine.
NEUROMARKETING
Reading the consumer mind
In the never-ending quest to decode consumer behaviors, the BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences uses Emory University Hospital’s Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment to scan the brains of human subjects on behalf of corporate clients such as Coca-Cola, K-mart and Home Depot.
Our children recognize McDonald’s and Nike logos before they can read, and our teens are suffering from more advertising-related psychological diseases every year–from diabetes and anorexia to attention deficit disorder and alcoholism.
So the thought of a once-respected university surrendering its MRI equipment, psychiatrists and addiction experts to an advertising agency in order for them to mine deep into our pre-conscious neural patterns and speak directly to our reptilian brains is disconcerting, to say the least.
It represents both a decline of academic integrity and the reach of marketing into the most private realms of human thought and emotion. If this stuff works, the bottom line of the corporate balance sheet could very well become the arbiter of reality–or at least the way we perceive it.
In the never-ending quest to decode consumer behaviors, the BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences uses Emory University Hospital’s Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment to scan the brains of human subjects on behalf of corporate clients such as Coca-Cola, K-mart and Home Depot.
Our children recognize McDonald’s and Nike logos before they can read, and our teens are suffering from more advertising-related psychological diseases every year–from diabetes and anorexia to attention deficit disorder and alcoholism.
So the thought of a once-respected university surrendering its MRI equipment, psychiatrists and addiction experts to an advertising agency in order for them to mine deep into our pre-conscious neural patterns and speak directly to our reptilian brains is disconcerting, to say the least.
It represents both a decline of academic integrity and the reach of marketing into the most private realms of human thought and emotion. If this stuff works, the bottom line of the corporate balance sheet could very well become the arbiter of reality–or at least the way we perceive it.
Friday, February 20, 2004
OIL WARS
A battle against shrinking reserves
The Middle East, which looked like a promising place to acquire oil reserves in 2003, turned out to be a disappointment. Companies are turning to more difficult areas, such as natural gas fields far from the markets they will serve, and heavy crude oil, which is expensive and environmentally controversial.
In the past three years, oil companies have discovered less than half the reserves found between 1998 and 2000. If one sees an oil company's reserves as a measure of its health -- as many do -- the industry is ill, with high oil prices masking the problem.
BP and its biggest competitors must find fields the size of the North Sea every 18 months just to stop their reserves from shrinking. That task is becoming increasingly difficult.
The Middle East, which looked like a promising place to acquire oil reserves in 2003, turned out to be a disappointment. Companies are turning to more difficult areas, such as natural gas fields far from the markets they will serve, and heavy crude oil, which is expensive and environmentally controversial.
In the past three years, oil companies have discovered less than half the reserves found between 1998 and 2000. If one sees an oil company's reserves as a measure of its health -- as many do -- the industry is ill, with high oil prices masking the problem.
BP and its biggest competitors must find fields the size of the North Sea every 18 months just to stop their reserves from shrinking. That task is becoming increasingly difficult.
CROSSING OVER
John Edwards gets the message
"The voters of Wisconsin sent a clear message. The message was this: Objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear.'' - Sen. John Edwards, who finished a surprisingly close second behind Sen. Kerry in Wisconsin's primary election on Tuesday. "
"The voters of Wisconsin sent a clear message. The message was this: Objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear.'' - Sen. John Edwards, who finished a surprisingly close second behind Sen. Kerry in Wisconsin's primary election on Tuesday. "
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
Five-year-old boy mutilated before human sacrifice
A five-year-old boy was kidnapped and sacrificed at Dhuranbigaha village in India.
Vikas Kumar, the son of a labourer, was allegedly thrown into a brick kiln fire after his eyes were pierced, tongue and ears cut off and throat slit.
Two kiln workers, one of them a tantrik, had gone around the village saying they were looking for a healthy male goat to sacrifice to keep the kiln fire burning.
Vikas was found to be missing on February 5 and was probably killed on the evening of February 9. His body was recovered from under a haystack by villagers two days later.
Organ traffickers 'threaten' nuns
Four Catholic nuns in Mozambique say they have received death threats after exposing an organ trafficking network allegedly operating in northern Mozambique.
The traffickers are said to target the sex organs of children, which are sold to make magic charms.
The nuns say they have spoken to victims who managed to escape and photos of dead children with missing organs.
Ritual murders have been reported in many African countries, as some witchdoctors say using human organs in magic charms makes them more powerful, bringing financial or sexual success to those who use them.
The organs are reportedly smuggled into neighbouring Zimbabwe and South Africa.
A five-year-old boy was kidnapped and sacrificed at Dhuranbigaha village in India.
Vikas Kumar, the son of a labourer, was allegedly thrown into a brick kiln fire after his eyes were pierced, tongue and ears cut off and throat slit.
Two kiln workers, one of them a tantrik, had gone around the village saying they were looking for a healthy male goat to sacrifice to keep the kiln fire burning.
Vikas was found to be missing on February 5 and was probably killed on the evening of February 9. His body was recovered from under a haystack by villagers two days later.
Organ traffickers 'threaten' nuns
Four Catholic nuns in Mozambique say they have received death threats after exposing an organ trafficking network allegedly operating in northern Mozambique.
The traffickers are said to target the sex organs of children, which are sold to make magic charms.
The nuns say they have spoken to victims who managed to escape and photos of dead children with missing organs.
Ritual murders have been reported in many African countries, as some witchdoctors say using human organs in magic charms makes them more powerful, bringing financial or sexual success to those who use them.
The organs are reportedly smuggled into neighbouring Zimbabwe and South Africa.
THE DESCENT OF MAN
Zoo gorillas to be given TVs
Moscow Zoo keepers are to fit televisions in the cages of their gorillas in a bid to make them 'think more'.
Zoo director Vladimir Spitsyn said the gorillas will be able to watch films about the life of monkeys and great apes in the wild among other subjects.
He said that similar projects had shown that by allowing animals to watch television their cognitive abilities improved. He said: 'We want them to spend less time picking their noses and more time thinking about life.'
The TVs will be introduced into the gorillas' cages this summer, reports Pravda
Moscow Zoo keepers are to fit televisions in the cages of their gorillas in a bid to make them 'think more'.
Zoo director Vladimir Spitsyn said the gorillas will be able to watch films about the life of monkeys and great apes in the wild among other subjects.
He said that similar projects had shown that by allowing animals to watch television their cognitive abilities improved. He said: 'We want them to spend less time picking their noses and more time thinking about life.'
The TVs will be introduced into the gorillas' cages this summer, reports Pravda
OUR COSMOS
Farthest known object detected
A team of astrophysicists have detected a tiny galaxy which lies roughly 13 billion light-years from Earth -- that is the farthest known object from Earth.
California Institute of Technology astronomers uncovered the faint galaxy using two of the most powerful telescopes -- one in space, the other in Hawaii -- aided by the natural magnification provided by a massive cluster of galaxies. The gravitational tug of the cluster, called Abell 2218, deflects the light of the distant galaxy and magnifies it many times over. The magnification process, first proposed by Albert Einstein and known as "gravitational lensing," produces double images of the galaxy.
A team of astrophysicists have detected a tiny galaxy which lies roughly 13 billion light-years from Earth -- that is the farthest known object from Earth.
California Institute of Technology astronomers uncovered the faint galaxy using two of the most powerful telescopes -- one in space, the other in Hawaii -- aided by the natural magnification provided by a massive cluster of galaxies. The gravitational tug of the cluster, called Abell 2218, deflects the light of the distant galaxy and magnifies it many times over. The magnification process, first proposed by Albert Einstein and known as "gravitational lensing," produces double images of the galaxy.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
LONGEVITY
Esther, 99 not out, thanks to McDonald's-free diet
At the age of 99, Esther Danes has traveled around the world, raised a family, made a career as a public-health nurse and earned a reputation as a dangerous bridge player around the retirement community where she now lives but she had never eaten a hamburger at McDonald's.
'I've been every place, done everything, but I haven't been to McDonald's,' she said, plucking out a french fry from a Happy Meal combo lunch in front of her.
At the age of 99, Esther Danes has traveled around the world, raised a family, made a career as a public-health nurse and earned a reputation as a dangerous bridge player around the retirement community where she now lives but she had never eaten a hamburger at McDonald's.
'I've been every place, done everything, but I haven't been to McDonald's,' she said, plucking out a french fry from a Happy Meal combo lunch in front of her.
OUR COSMOS
Astronomers find a huge diamond in space
Some people refer to it as 'Lucy' in a tribute to the Beatles song 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.
A cosmic diamond - a chunk of crystallized carbon 4000 kilometres across - has been discovered 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.
The huge cosmic gem (BPM 37093) is a crystallized white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon and is coated by a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.
For more than four decades, astronomers have thought that the interiors of white dwarfs crystallized, but obtaining direct evidence became possible only recently. Measuring the dwarf's pulsations uncovered its hidden interior - the carbon interior had solidified to form the galaxy's largest diamond.
Our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's ember core will crystallize as well, leaving a giant diamond in the center of our solar system.
A paper announcing this discovery has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters for publication.
Some people refer to it as 'Lucy' in a tribute to the Beatles song 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.
A cosmic diamond - a chunk of crystallized carbon 4000 kilometres across - has been discovered 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.
The huge cosmic gem (BPM 37093) is a crystallized white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon and is coated by a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.
For more than four decades, astronomers have thought that the interiors of white dwarfs crystallized, but obtaining direct evidence became possible only recently. Measuring the dwarf's pulsations uncovered its hidden interior - the carbon interior had solidified to form the galaxy's largest diamond.
Our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's ember core will crystallize as well, leaving a giant diamond in the center of our solar system.
A paper announcing this discovery has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters for publication.
MIND CONTROL
Bizarre brainwashing therapy leads to $7.35m malpractice settlement
Rather than fixing her depression, Gale says psychiatrist Dr Bennett Braun and colleagues team made it worse. They reportedly convinced Gale during drug-induced hypnosis that she was repressing abuse from her childhood, that she had killed a young boy and that she would die if she contacted her family. Gale says Braun told her that her family was involved in a cult and that one of her personalities was participating in it.
'I was convinced I was what was called a breeder, that my job was to have babies for their use,' Gale said. Gale allegedly then was told to undergo a tubal ligation to avoid cult pregnancies, and she had the procedure performed with Braun's approval in 1991, Smith said.
Braun's Illinois medical license was reinstated in 2001 after being suspended in 1999 when another woman made similar accusations regarding a satanic cult. Braun also denied those allegations.
An Iowa woman and her family won $10.6 million in 1997. Braun convinced her that she sexually abused her two sons, ate human flesh, and had 300 personalities.
"At the time the care was being provided, in the mid-'80s and early-'90s, Dr. Braun and his team were recognized as national experts in the diagnosis and treatment of multiple personality disorder and the recovery of repressed memories of childhood abuse," she said.
Ken Merlino, one of Gale's lawyers, said the doctors, Bennett Braun, Roberta Sachs and Corydon Hammond, used overly suggestive questioning and unsafe levels of drugs that caused hallucinations. They also did not follow protocols for keeping patients separated, leading to what is known as "symptom sharing."
Chicago's Daily Herald reports"On hundreds of occasions, Ms. Gale was tied down, over-medicated with Inderal, a heart medication not appropriate for psychiatric disorders, and essentially brainwashed by these three defendants," a prepared statement by Merlino's firm said.
Of the $7.5 million award, Hammond will pay $175,000, Sachs will pay $3.1 million, Braun will pay $500,000, Rush St. Luke's will pay $150,000 and Rush North Shore will pay $3.6 million.
Dr. Corydon Hammond delivered what is know as the Greenbaum Lecture on ritual abuse at the Fourth Annual Eastern Regional Conference on Abuse and Multiple Personality in 1992.
Rather than fixing her depression, Gale says psychiatrist Dr Bennett Braun and colleagues team made it worse. They reportedly convinced Gale during drug-induced hypnosis that she was repressing abuse from her childhood, that she had killed a young boy and that she would die if she contacted her family. Gale says Braun told her that her family was involved in a cult and that one of her personalities was participating in it.
'I was convinced I was what was called a breeder, that my job was to have babies for their use,' Gale said. Gale allegedly then was told to undergo a tubal ligation to avoid cult pregnancies, and she had the procedure performed with Braun's approval in 1991, Smith said.
Braun's Illinois medical license was reinstated in 2001 after being suspended in 1999 when another woman made similar accusations regarding a satanic cult. Braun also denied those allegations.
An Iowa woman and her family won $10.6 million in 1997. Braun convinced her that she sexually abused her two sons, ate human flesh, and had 300 personalities.
"At the time the care was being provided, in the mid-'80s and early-'90s, Dr. Braun and his team were recognized as national experts in the diagnosis and treatment of multiple personality disorder and the recovery of repressed memories of childhood abuse," she said.
Ken Merlino, one of Gale's lawyers, said the doctors, Bennett Braun, Roberta Sachs and Corydon Hammond, used overly suggestive questioning and unsafe levels of drugs that caused hallucinations. They also did not follow protocols for keeping patients separated, leading to what is known as "symptom sharing."
Chicago's Daily Herald reports"On hundreds of occasions, Ms. Gale was tied down, over-medicated with Inderal, a heart medication not appropriate for psychiatric disorders, and essentially brainwashed by these three defendants," a prepared statement by Merlino's firm said.
Of the $7.5 million award, Hammond will pay $175,000, Sachs will pay $3.1 million, Braun will pay $500,000, Rush St. Luke's will pay $150,000 and Rush North Shore will pay $3.6 million.
Dr. Corydon Hammond delivered what is know as the Greenbaum Lecture on ritual abuse at the Fourth Annual Eastern Regional Conference on Abuse and Multiple Personality in 1992.
LIFE JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT
Lab scientists may soon be shouting: It's alive
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are close to creating an organism completely different from any life on Earth.
They have all the building blocks ready and are hoping in the next few years to create a new organism 10 million times smaller than the smallest bacteria, they say in an article released today in the journal Science.
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are close to creating an organism completely different from any life on Earth.
They have all the building blocks ready and are hoping in the next few years to create a new organism 10 million times smaller than the smallest bacteria, they say in an article released today in the journal Science.
OUR COSMOS
A Valentine rose from the Cosmos
The Spitzer Space Telescope, launched last year, has sent back a cosmic Valentine picture - a stellar nursery resembling a pink rosebud - a group of newborn stars embedded in a cloud of gas and dust called a reflection nebula.
Billions of years ago our Sun was born in such a cloud says astronomers
Saturday, February 14, 2004
NEW WORLD ORDER
Get Me Rewrite!
The Bush administration is trying to rewrite history, to explain away its current embarrassments.
Let's start with the case of the missing W.M.D. Do you remember when the C.I.A. was reviled by hawks because its analysts were reluctant to present a sufficiently alarming picture of the Iraqi threat? Your memories are no longer operative. On or about last Saturday, history was revised: see, it's the C.I.A.'s fault that the threat was overstated. Given its warnings, the administration had no choice but to invade. "
The Bush administration is trying to rewrite history, to explain away its current embarrassments.
Let's start with the case of the missing W.M.D. Do you remember when the C.I.A. was reviled by hawks because its analysts were reluctant to present a sufficiently alarming picture of the Iraqi threat? Your memories are no longer operative. On or about last Saturday, history was revised: see, it's the C.I.A.'s fault that the threat was overstated. Given its warnings, the administration had no choice but to invade. "
OUR ALIEN MASTERS
God made me do it, says Bush
Mr. Bush's credibility has suffered its biggest hit to date with the publication of the weapons report by David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector and CIA adviser who said no weapons now exist in Iraq.
Mr. Kay's repudiation may diminish some of the sense of moral righteousness coming from the Bush White House.
Though it wasn't publicized at the time, Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin got a sense of that sanctimony when he met with Mr. Bush in early January in Mexico. Mr. Bush let the Prime Minister know that he believed himself to be on the side of God and tending to God's mission.
The Canadian side, while aware of the President's penchant for religiosity, had been expecting to talk more about softwood lumber than the Ten Commandments. The Canadians didn't expect the morality play. Nor did they expect that, almost in the same breath, Mr. Bush would be filling the air with the f-word and other saucy expletives of the type that would surely leave the Lord perturbed. Nor did they anticipate a pointed attack on French President "Jack Cheerack," as Mr. Bush called him, for his views on the Middle East.
Mr. Martin was somewhat taken aback by what he heard. After the meeting, he was barely out the door before he was asking someone in his entourage what was to be made of all the God stuff. In meetings of presidents and prime ministers, religion has rarely been at the forefront. Business is conducted on the basis of knowledge and logic. With the Bush White House, the visitors must bear in mind that there is a third force.
Mr. Bush's credibility has suffered its biggest hit to date with the publication of the weapons report by David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector and CIA adviser who said no weapons now exist in Iraq.
Mr. Kay's repudiation may diminish some of the sense of moral righteousness coming from the Bush White House.
Though it wasn't publicized at the time, Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin got a sense of that sanctimony when he met with Mr. Bush in early January in Mexico. Mr. Bush let the Prime Minister know that he believed himself to be on the side of God and tending to God's mission.
The Canadian side, while aware of the President's penchant for religiosity, had been expecting to talk more about softwood lumber than the Ten Commandments. The Canadians didn't expect the morality play. Nor did they expect that, almost in the same breath, Mr. Bush would be filling the air with the f-word and other saucy expletives of the type that would surely leave the Lord perturbed. Nor did they anticipate a pointed attack on French President "Jack Cheerack," as Mr. Bush called him, for his views on the Middle East.
Mr. Martin was somewhat taken aback by what he heard. After the meeting, he was barely out the door before he was asking someone in his entourage what was to be made of all the God stuff. In meetings of presidents and prime ministers, religion has rarely been at the forefront. Business is conducted on the basis of knowledge and logic. With the Bush White House, the visitors must bear in mind that there is a third force.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
RED PLANET
The unusual feature near Opportunity's landing area which was crushed when the rover was reversed over it
Interesting object crushed by Mars rover
This strange little thing, looking rather like a delicate flower or a skull with horns, was by far the most interesting item at Opportunity's landing site. As these excerpts from the panoramic view show, it was directly situated in front of the rover below the right end of an long, exposed formation of rocks.
It was an actual object, not bad data, as it appears on several of the black and white frames in both left and right camera views. Nor was it probably an artifact. There are several tiny scraps scattered about the landing site, and from their colors, they seem to be nothing more than debris from the lander. This thing was different.
WATCH THE SKIES
When UFOs arrive
The U.S. and other world governments already have detailed secret plans for first contact. Within the scientific community, the question is no longer whether extraterrestrial life exists, but if ET is smart enough to do long division.
Governments and international organizations around the world, with little public fanfare, have begun preparing for first contact: the moment earthlings discover incontrovertible proof that they are not alone.
The broad-brush outline for Earth's response to the first alien encounter is set out in an international agreement called the "Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Written by a committee of scientists organized by the SETI Institute, the declaration spells out what astronomers should do, and what they should avoid doing - namely telling people, immediately after first contact.
The U.S. and other world governments already have detailed secret plans for first contact. Within the scientific community, the question is no longer whether extraterrestrial life exists, but if ET is smart enough to do long division.
Governments and international organizations around the world, with little public fanfare, have begun preparing for first contact: the moment earthlings discover incontrovertible proof that they are not alone.
The broad-brush outline for Earth's response to the first alien encounter is set out in an international agreement called the "Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Written by a committee of scientists organized by the SETI Institute, the declaration spells out what astronomers should do, and what they should avoid doing - namely telling people, immediately after first contact.
FORTEAN FIRES
Spontaneous fires spout from water pipes, furniture
The mysterious phenomenon of the spontaneous fires among the residents of Canneto, Italy, has come to a standstill. Experts of the State Rescue Services continue to carry out checks while awaiting special instruments from Milan in order to get more precise results.
Yesterday fires were breaking out in water pipes and between pieces of electrical wire which had been cut and were lying on the ground without being connected to any source of energy.
The electricty has been turned off in Canneto for several days but this did not stop the fires breaking out. Flames developed again and again without any plausible explanation in domestic appliances, intercoms, plugs, meters.
The UK Mirror newspaper reports: Over three weeks fridges, washing machines, cookers and furniture all began bursting into flames for no reason. Twelve houses were badly damaged by blazes in the quiet village. Last night Italian TV showed people fleeing in tears while fireman rushed to fight yet another spontaneous blaze.
"People are blaming evil spirits and I am being asked to get the priest to perform an exorcism," said Mayor Pedro Spinnato.
Devil in the detail of Sicily's mysterious village fires
"What is happening is what normally happens when the devil enters the lives of those who let him in," Father Gabriele Amorth said yesterday as scientists and officials confessed themselves unable to explain a string of fires and explosions which began in the middle of last month in the fishermen's quarter of a Sicilian village.
Gianfranco Allegra, of the Italian Centre for Electro-technical Experimentation, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had watched as "an electrical wire lying on the floor that was not plugged in to the mains inexplicably caught fire". When he reported the incident to his superiors in Milan he was told to sober up.
What makes the incidents all the more puzzling is that the area has been without an electricity supply since January 4. On Monday the affair took a new turn when a chair burst into flames. Then a fire started in a water pipe.
The mysterious phenomenon of the spontaneous fires among the residents of Canneto, Italy, has come to a standstill. Experts of the State Rescue Services continue to carry out checks while awaiting special instruments from Milan in order to get more precise results.
Yesterday fires were breaking out in water pipes and between pieces of electrical wire which had been cut and were lying on the ground without being connected to any source of energy.
The electricty has been turned off in Canneto for several days but this did not stop the fires breaking out. Flames developed again and again without any plausible explanation in domestic appliances, intercoms, plugs, meters.
The UK Mirror newspaper reports: Over three weeks fridges, washing machines, cookers and furniture all began bursting into flames for no reason. Twelve houses were badly damaged by blazes in the quiet village. Last night Italian TV showed people fleeing in tears while fireman rushed to fight yet another spontaneous blaze.
"People are blaming evil spirits and I am being asked to get the priest to perform an exorcism," said Mayor Pedro Spinnato.
Devil in the detail of Sicily's mysterious village fires
"What is happening is what normally happens when the devil enters the lives of those who let him in," Father Gabriele Amorth said yesterday as scientists and officials confessed themselves unable to explain a string of fires and explosions which began in the middle of last month in the fishermen's quarter of a Sicilian village.
Gianfranco Allegra, of the Italian Centre for Electro-technical Experimentation, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had watched as "an electrical wire lying on the floor that was not plugged in to the mains inexplicably caught fire". When he reported the incident to his superiors in Milan he was told to sober up.
What makes the incidents all the more puzzling is that the area has been without an electricity supply since January 4. On Monday the affair took a new turn when a chair burst into flames. Then a fire started in a water pipe.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
BIG CHILL
Dust to dust, ashes to freeze-dried powder
Rather than bury or burn bodies after death, a Swedish company has come up with a chilling alternative – freezing them in liquid nitrogen, then using soundwaves to smash the brittle remains into a powder.
Concerns about the environmental impact of cremation, where a body is incinerated at high temperature, and burial, in which a body can take many years to decompose, has led Swedish firm Promessa Organic AB to the new solution.
The process involves flash-freezing bodies to – 18C, then dipping them in liquid nitrogen with a temperature of -196C. The bodies, extracted from the super-cold solution, are brittle as glass and broken down with bursts of sound to leave a powder substance.
From there, all water is removed in a vacuum chamber before the remains are moved through a metal screen that filters away any precious metals in fillings or remnants of pacemakers and other implants that may have survived the freezing process.
Rather than bury or burn bodies after death, a Swedish company has come up with a chilling alternative – freezing them in liquid nitrogen, then using soundwaves to smash the brittle remains into a powder.
Concerns about the environmental impact of cremation, where a body is incinerated at high temperature, and burial, in which a body can take many years to decompose, has led Swedish firm Promessa Organic AB to the new solution.
The process involves flash-freezing bodies to – 18C, then dipping them in liquid nitrogen with a temperature of -196C. The bodies, extracted from the super-cold solution, are brittle as glass and broken down with bursts of sound to leave a powder substance.
From there, all water is removed in a vacuum chamber before the remains are moved through a metal screen that filters away any precious metals in fillings or remnants of pacemakers and other implants that may have survived the freezing process.
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
Elders tell HIV man to have sex with 9yo virgin
Men in the arid, remote Kenyan town of Isiolo have long had sex with young virgins to purge themselves of afflictions or curses.
Now the age-old custom practised by the nomadic peoples of Kenya's north-eastern province is increasingly being used as a 'cure' for HIV and Aids.
Nassir hesitantly admits he slept with a nine-year-old girl because the clan elders in Isiolo, 200km north-east of Nairobi, said it would rid him of frequent bouts of illness brought on by HIV.
'I was given a girl of nine years to sleep with for a week,' Nassir said. 'I took pity on her but if it wasn't for this disease I wouldn't have slept with her. I had to do what the elders had said.'
Father pushes five young daughters off bridge
A poverty-stricken villager pushed five of his daughters off a bridge into the swirling waters of the Naramada river in the western Indian state of Gujarat, police said on Friday.
The Press Trust of India news agency quoted local police chief AV Vasava as saying that Salim Ghulam Hussain hurled his daughters, all aged less than seven, from the Jadeshwar bridge into the fast moving Narmada on Thursday.
Hussain was on the run while his distraught wife told the police her husband "was fed up with life" as the family could not make ends meet.
Men in the arid, remote Kenyan town of Isiolo have long had sex with young virgins to purge themselves of afflictions or curses.
Now the age-old custom practised by the nomadic peoples of Kenya's north-eastern province is increasingly being used as a 'cure' for HIV and Aids.
Nassir hesitantly admits he slept with a nine-year-old girl because the clan elders in Isiolo, 200km north-east of Nairobi, said it would rid him of frequent bouts of illness brought on by HIV.
'I was given a girl of nine years to sleep with for a week,' Nassir said. 'I took pity on her but if it wasn't for this disease I wouldn't have slept with her. I had to do what the elders had said.'
Father pushes five young daughters off bridge
A poverty-stricken villager pushed five of his daughters off a bridge into the swirling waters of the Naramada river in the western Indian state of Gujarat, police said on Friday.
The Press Trust of India news agency quoted local police chief AV Vasava as saying that Salim Ghulam Hussain hurled his daughters, all aged less than seven, from the Jadeshwar bridge into the fast moving Narmada on Thursday.
Hussain was on the run while his distraught wife told the police her husband "was fed up with life" as the family could not make ends meet.
THE OTHERS
More than 30 years on - UFO witness still wants to know
In 1972, I saw a UFO at 5am over Darwin airport with 3 other gentlemen. After 31 years I would like to make contact again with the other witnesses. Two were security guards from Darwin airport, the other was 'Fred' whose father was the caretaker at the Darwin German Club. Please contact me...
When it stopped directly above two of the witnesses one "ran in panic and hid underneath the eaves of a building and he was screaming out 'get out of there you maniac, you don't know what that is get away'."
In 1972, I saw a UFO at 5am over Darwin airport with 3 other gentlemen. After 31 years I would like to make contact again with the other witnesses. Two were security guards from Darwin airport, the other was 'Fred' whose father was the caretaker at the Darwin German Club. Please contact me...
When it stopped directly above two of the witnesses one "ran in panic and hid underneath the eaves of a building and he was screaming out 'get out of there you maniac, you don't know what that is get away'."
MONOPOLY GAME
Microsoft critic dismissed by consultancy firm
A computer security expert who contributed to a paper deeply critical of Microsoft has been dismissed by his employer, a consulting company that works closely with the software giant.
Dan Geer, a longtime computer security researcher, and several colleagues released a controversial study on Wednesday that called the ubiquity of Microsoft software a hazard to the economy and to national security. Although independently financed and researched, the study was distributed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a Washington-based trade association largely made up of Microsoft's rivals.
A Microsoft spokesman said the software maker had not pressured @Stake to make any decision on Geer's status. However, @Stake did call Microsoft late Tuesday night (after news of the report's contents first broke) to say that Geer's findings did not reflect his employer's opinions, the spokesman said.
A computer security expert who contributed to a paper deeply critical of Microsoft has been dismissed by his employer, a consulting company that works closely with the software giant.
Dan Geer, a longtime computer security researcher, and several colleagues released a controversial study on Wednesday that called the ubiquity of Microsoft software a hazard to the economy and to national security. Although independently financed and researched, the study was distributed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a Washington-based trade association largely made up of Microsoft's rivals.
A Microsoft spokesman said the software maker had not pressured @Stake to make any decision on Geer's status. However, @Stake did call Microsoft late Tuesday night (after news of the report's contents first broke) to say that Geer's findings did not reflect his employer's opinions, the spokesman said.
EARTH CHANGES
Astronomers say Dark Ages a result of comet impact
The team has been studying evidence from tree rings, which suggests that the Earth underwent a series of very cold summers around 536-540 AD, indicating an effect rather like a nuclear winter.
The scientists in the School of Physics and Astronomy believe this was caused by a comet hitting the earth and exploding in the upper atmosphere. The debris from this giant explosion was such that it enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the very cold weather.
Historical references from this period - known as the Dark Ages – are sparse, but what records there are, tell of crop failures and summer frosts.
The team has been studying evidence from tree rings, which suggests that the Earth underwent a series of very cold summers around 536-540 AD, indicating an effect rather like a nuclear winter.
The scientists in the School of Physics and Astronomy believe this was caused by a comet hitting the earth and exploding in the upper atmosphere. The debris from this giant explosion was such that it enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the very cold weather.
Historical references from this period - known as the Dark Ages – are sparse, but what records there are, tell of crop failures and summer frosts.
NEW WORLD ORDER
Another US city passes resolution condemning Patriot Act
The St. Paul City Council recently joined Minneapolis and more than 200 cities that have passed resolutions condemning the 2001 USA Patriot Act. The resolution was passed with a 6 to 1 vote, the only dissenter being Ward 6 member Dan Bostrom. The wording of the three and one-half page resolution reveals the specific concerns the Council has with how the legislation affects St. Paul residents, as well as how it encroaches on the city’s ability to run its own affairs without undue interference from the federal government.
A provision of the act requires librarians to turn over records of what reading material a library patron checks out when a federal agency demands it, but the librarian will be guilty of a felony for even revealing that the government has made such a demand.
“At our St. Paul Public Library Board meeting,” explained a councillor, “one of the Councilmembers asked the director of libraries if she had been asked to provide any of that. She said she couldn’t answer that. She can’t even report to the board she’s supposed to report to, because that would be illegal.”
“The Patriot Act may have been well intentioned,” Thune argues, “but unfortunately I think it was sort of grounded in some kind of anti-citizenry thing that the right wing has been wanting to pass for a long time, and this was their excuse.”
The St. Paul City Council recently joined Minneapolis and more than 200 cities that have passed resolutions condemning the 2001 USA Patriot Act. The resolution was passed with a 6 to 1 vote, the only dissenter being Ward 6 member Dan Bostrom. The wording of the three and one-half page resolution reveals the specific concerns the Council has with how the legislation affects St. Paul residents, as well as how it encroaches on the city’s ability to run its own affairs without undue interference from the federal government.
A provision of the act requires librarians to turn over records of what reading material a library patron checks out when a federal agency demands it, but the librarian will be guilty of a felony for even revealing that the government has made such a demand.
“At our St. Paul Public Library Board meeting,” explained a councillor, “one of the Councilmembers asked the director of libraries if she had been asked to provide any of that. She said she couldn’t answer that. She can’t even report to the board she’s supposed to report to, because that would be illegal.”
“The Patriot Act may have been well intentioned,” Thune argues, “but unfortunately I think it was sort of grounded in some kind of anti-citizenry thing that the right wing has been wanting to pass for a long time, and this was their excuse.”
NEW WORLD ORDER
Armed doctors mooted as security measure
Frederick County in the US is considering a bill that would let physicians carry guns and make arrests as members of county homeland security teams.
The bill, sponsored by two Frederick County senators, was proposed by Frederick County Sheriff James Hagy. He said the Maryland Police Training Commission and sheriffs throughout the state support the measure.
Opponents say the proposal would blur the line between law enforcement and medical professionals.
Frederick County in the US is considering a bill that would let physicians carry guns and make arrests as members of county homeland security teams.
The bill, sponsored by two Frederick County senators, was proposed by Frederick County Sheriff James Hagy. He said the Maryland Police Training Commission and sheriffs throughout the state support the measure.
Opponents say the proposal would blur the line between law enforcement and medical professionals.
IN GOD WE TRUST
Pilot's Christian query alarms passengers
An American Airlines pilot terrified passengers when he asked Christians to identify themselves and allegedly went on to call non-Christians 'crazy'.
Some passengers on the flight from Los Angeles to New York were so worried they tried to call relatives on their mobile phones. The pilot, whose name was not released, asked Christians on Friday's flight to raise their hands.
One passenger said others had thought the pilot's behaviour was "bizarre" and wondered whether his comments were a threat. Flight attendants notified ground control.
An American Airlines pilot terrified passengers when he asked Christians to identify themselves and allegedly went on to call non-Christians 'crazy'.
Some passengers on the flight from Los Angeles to New York were so worried they tried to call relatives on their mobile phones. The pilot, whose name was not released, asked Christians on Friday's flight to raise their hands.
One passenger said others had thought the pilot's behaviour was "bizarre" and wondered whether his comments were a threat. Flight attendants notified ground control.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
OUR COSMOS
New study shows how black holes can be ejected from a galaxy
When black holes collide, an enormous burst of gravitational radiation results as they violently merge into one massive black hole. The 'kick' that occurs during the collision could knock the black hole clear out of its galaxy. A new study describes the consequences of such an intergalactic collision.
The kick -- a consequence of relativity -- occurs because gravitational waves emitted during the final plunge are anisotropic, producing recoil. The effect is maximized when one black hole is appreciably larger than the other one. While astrophysicists have been aware of this phenomenon since the 1960s, until now no one has had the analytical tools necessary to accurately calculate the size of the effect. The first accurate calculation of the size of the kicks was reported in a companion paper by Favata, Hughes and Holz, which also appears online.
When black holes collide, an enormous burst of gravitational radiation results as they violently merge into one massive black hole. The 'kick' that occurs during the collision could knock the black hole clear out of its galaxy. A new study describes the consequences of such an intergalactic collision.
The kick -- a consequence of relativity -- occurs because gravitational waves emitted during the final plunge are anisotropic, producing recoil. The effect is maximized when one black hole is appreciably larger than the other one. While astrophysicists have been aware of this phenomenon since the 1960s, until now no one has had the analytical tools necessary to accurately calculate the size of the effect. The first accurate calculation of the size of the kicks was reported in a companion paper by Favata, Hughes and Holz, which also appears online.
RIGHTS TRASHED
No Fly List Includes Web Publishers
Why would two women in their 50s, US citizens, San Francisco homeowners and long-time peace activists with no criminal records be on a federal watch list with suspected terrorists?
The last time Rebecca Gordon and Janet Adams checked in for a flight to Boston to visit Gordon's 80-year-old father, an airline employee came back and said "you turned up on the FBI no-fly list. We have called the San Francisco police. We were detained. We were definitely detained. I couldn't even get a drink of water," Gordon remembered.
The so-called 'No-Fly' list is "a list of names gathered through intelligence and law enforcement of individuals who are either known terrorists or have links to known terrorists," Transportation Security Administration spokesperson Mark Hatfied said.
The list is now alleged to include people based on their political views. A list that is thought to include members of the Green Party, a Jesuit priest who is a peace activist and two civil rights attorneys.
Why would two women in their 50s, US citizens, San Francisco homeowners and long-time peace activists with no criminal records be on a federal watch list with suspected terrorists?
The last time Rebecca Gordon and Janet Adams checked in for a flight to Boston to visit Gordon's 80-year-old father, an airline employee came back and said "you turned up on the FBI no-fly list. We have called the San Francisco police. We were detained. We were definitely detained. I couldn't even get a drink of water," Gordon remembered.
The so-called 'No-Fly' list is "a list of names gathered through intelligence and law enforcement of individuals who are either known terrorists or have links to known terrorists," Transportation Security Administration spokesperson Mark Hatfied said.
The list is now alleged to include people based on their political views. A list that is thought to include members of the Green Party, a Jesuit priest who is a peace activist and two civil rights attorneys.
CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE
Ex-astronaut Mitchell's curiosity continues
Somewhere in deep space, Ed Mitchell experienced a cosmic awakening that changed his life. "I got to look out the window a lot," he recalled about his return trip from the moon 33 years ago this week. "I had a powerful insight looking at the heavens. Suddenly, it became damn personal."
Mitchell wrote about this insight in his 1996 memoir, The Way of the Explorer: "What I experienced during that three-day trip home was nothing short of an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness. I actually felt what has been described as an ecstacy of unity." Mitchell wrote that he felt "a sense that our presence as space travelers, and the existence of the universe itself, was not accidental, but that there was an intelligent process at work. I perceived the universe as in some way conscious."
Somewhere in deep space, Ed Mitchell experienced a cosmic awakening that changed his life. "I got to look out the window a lot," he recalled about his return trip from the moon 33 years ago this week. "I had a powerful insight looking at the heavens. Suddenly, it became damn personal."
Mitchell wrote about this insight in his 1996 memoir, The Way of the Explorer: "What I experienced during that three-day trip home was nothing short of an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness. I actually felt what has been described as an ecstacy of unity." Mitchell wrote that he felt "a sense that our presence as space travelers, and the existence of the universe itself, was not accidental, but that there was an intelligent process at work. I perceived the universe as in some way conscious."
OUR ALIEN MASTERS
Bush defends National Guard AWOL accusation, almost
According to a copy of the National Guard document granting him an 'honorable' discharge on Oct. 1, 1973, Bush completed five years and four months of service -- less than the obligatory six years -- before going to Harvard Business School. Bush said Democratic charges that he went 'AWOL' by missing required drills in Alabama were untrue.
When confronted with the fact that he didn't show up for his last 6 months, he said: ' Well, I was going to the Harvard Business School, and I struck a deal with the government'.
Asked why no evidence has been found to show he reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972, Bush said: "There may be no evidence, but I did report. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged... I did show up in Alabama."
According to a copy of the National Guard document granting him an 'honorable' discharge on Oct. 1, 1973, Bush completed five years and four months of service -- less than the obligatory six years -- before going to Harvard Business School. Bush said Democratic charges that he went 'AWOL' by missing required drills in Alabama were untrue.
When confronted with the fact that he didn't show up for his last 6 months, he said: ' Well, I was going to the Harvard Business School, and I struck a deal with the government'.
Asked why no evidence has been found to show he reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972, Bush said: "There may be no evidence, but I did report. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged... I did show up in Alabama."
Sunday, February 08, 2004
RIGHTS TRASHED
Protester jailed 5 years after free expression
Over the years, South Carolina Progressive Network director Brett Bursey has protested presidential visits by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush (the Elder) and Bill Clinton, all without incident. That all changed on October 23, 2002, when Dubya Bush came to town.
While in the gathered throng he held aloft a small cardboard placard with the words No Blood for Oil.
Whe police told him to move to a non-existant "Free Speech Zone" when he refused to be moved along again he was to discover he was in a restricted area around the president of the United States -- courtesy of an obscure federal law -- despite there being hundreds of Bush supporters all around him.
A number of congressmen signed a petition asking Thurmond to drop charges. He refused. Bursey asked for a jury trial but this was refused -- despite facing five years in jail, he was told the case was too "petty" to rate bothering his peers. The US Justice Department has again exhibited politically-motivated thuggery.
Over the years, South Carolina Progressive Network director Brett Bursey has protested presidential visits by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush (the Elder) and Bill Clinton, all without incident. That all changed on October 23, 2002, when Dubya Bush came to town.
While in the gathered throng he held aloft a small cardboard placard with the words No Blood for Oil.
Whe police told him to move to a non-existant "Free Speech Zone" when he refused to be moved along again he was to discover he was in a restricted area around the president of the United States -- courtesy of an obscure federal law -- despite there being hundreds of Bush supporters all around him.
A number of congressmen signed a petition asking Thurmond to drop charges. He refused. Bursey asked for a jury trial but this was refused -- despite facing five years in jail, he was told the case was too "petty" to rate bothering his peers. The US Justice Department has again exhibited politically-motivated thuggery.
FAIR COP
FBI probe videotaped beating
Amateur videotape of the beating of a handcuffed black teen-ager in Los shows a white police officer throwing Donovan Chavis, 16, against a police car and punching him in the face.
An attorney for Chavis described the teen as a developmentally disabled special education student with no arrest record who did not understand what was happening, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The incident is under investigation by the FBI, the city's police department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the district attorney's office.
Immediately after releasing the video to CNN, the cameraman Mitchell Crooks was snatched up by police officers in a black Explorer with darkened windows and spirited away. CNN taped his capture and broadcast that along with the police beating footage.
Amateur videotape of the beating of a handcuffed black teen-ager in Los shows a white police officer throwing Donovan Chavis, 16, against a police car and punching him in the face.
An attorney for Chavis described the teen as a developmentally disabled special education student with no arrest record who did not understand what was happening, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The incident is under investigation by the FBI, the city's police department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the district attorney's office.
Immediately after releasing the video to CNN, the cameraman Mitchell Crooks was snatched up by police officers in a black Explorer with darkened windows and spirited away. CNN taped his capture and broadcast that along with the police beating footage.
Thursday, February 05, 2004
OUR ALIEN MASTERS
Pre-emptive pre-school strike ... and the bigger picture
A man in Lawrence, Kansas walks into a day-care center. He has a gun in his pocket but nobody sees it. He goes up to the second floor, where the preschool kids are having their afternoon snack of cookies and juice. He pulls out the gun and shoots a little boy in the head, leaving his face a mass of bone-flecked goo. Then he fires into the chest of the girl in the next chair; she dies still clutching the stuffed rabbit she brings with her every day.
After some more killings he tells the police: "Somebody said the guy who runs this place might attack me someday. I had questions that needed to be answered: Did he have a gun or a knife -- or nothing? We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary.
This fable is the precise moral equivalent of the Bush Regime's murderous misadventure in Iraq. Last week, the Regime's own duly-appointed, CIA-paid weapons hunter, David Kay, finally coughed up a dinosaur-sized bone and admitted, openly, publicly, what the sane world has long known.
A man in Lawrence, Kansas walks into a day-care center. He has a gun in his pocket but nobody sees it. He goes up to the second floor, where the preschool kids are having their afternoon snack of cookies and juice. He pulls out the gun and shoots a little boy in the head, leaving his face a mass of bone-flecked goo. Then he fires into the chest of the girl in the next chair; she dies still clutching the stuffed rabbit she brings with her every day.
After some more killings he tells the police: "Somebody said the guy who runs this place might attack me someday. I had questions that needed to be answered: Did he have a gun or a knife -- or nothing? We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary.
This fable is the precise moral equivalent of the Bush Regime's murderous misadventure in Iraq. Last week, the Regime's own duly-appointed, CIA-paid weapons hunter, David Kay, finally coughed up a dinosaur-sized bone and admitted, openly, publicly, what the sane world has long known.
PROPAGANDA CENTRAL
The Lie Factory: Bush administration's secret unit to create the case for war
So far, says Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski -- a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, no investigators have come knocking. Not from the Central Intelligence Agency, which conducted an internal inquiry into intelligence on Iraq, not from the congressional intelligence committees, not from the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. All of those bodies are ostensibly looking into the Bush administration's prewar Iraq intelligence, amid charges that the White House and the Pentagon exaggerated, distorted, or just plain lied about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda terrorists and its possession of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In her hands, Kwiatkowski holds several pieces of the puzzle. Yet she, along with a score of other career officers recently retired or shuffled off to other jobs, has not been approached by anyone.
So far, says Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski -- a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, no investigators have come knocking. Not from the Central Intelligence Agency, which conducted an internal inquiry into intelligence on Iraq, not from the congressional intelligence committees, not from the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. All of those bodies are ostensibly looking into the Bush administration's prewar Iraq intelligence, amid charges that the White House and the Pentagon exaggerated, distorted, or just plain lied about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda terrorists and its possession of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In her hands, Kwiatkowski holds several pieces of the puzzle. Yet she, along with a score of other career officers recently retired or shuffled off to other jobs, has not been approached by anyone.
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
ABSENT LINK
Neanderthals not related to humans, say paleoanthropologists
Although many scientists think Neanderthals were a subspecies, which could have interbred with Homo sapiens, new research appears to confirm the more widely held view that Neanderthals and modern humans were significantly different, enough to qualify as separate species.
"Neanderthals did not contribute to the ancestry of modern Europeans," Dr. Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist at New York University said in an interview.
The research lends strong support for the single-origin theory of modern human evolution.
Dr. Eric Delson, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History and Lehman College, both in New York City, said the new research was a mathematically rigorous approach to the question of Neanderthal-human relationships. "It's a very convincing piece of work," Dr. Delson said.
[Meanwhile in the world of 'Newspeak': The US state of Georgia's school superintendent Kathy Cox has proposed striking the word evolution from Georgia's science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase "biological changes over time". Cox repeatedly referred to evolution as a "buzzword"]
Although many scientists think Neanderthals were a subspecies, which could have interbred with Homo sapiens, new research appears to confirm the more widely held view that Neanderthals and modern humans were significantly different, enough to qualify as separate species.
"Neanderthals did not contribute to the ancestry of modern Europeans," Dr. Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist at New York University said in an interview.
The research lends strong support for the single-origin theory of modern human evolution.
Dr. Eric Delson, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History and Lehman College, both in New York City, said the new research was a mathematically rigorous approach to the question of Neanderthal-human relationships. "It's a very convincing piece of work," Dr. Delson said.
[Meanwhile in the world of 'Newspeak': The US state of Georgia's school superintendent Kathy Cox has proposed striking the word evolution from Georgia's science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase "biological changes over time". Cox repeatedly referred to evolution as a "buzzword"]
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
NEW WORLD ORDER
Educational eugenics in Bush's State of the Union
Deep into your State of the Siege lecture, long after sensible adults had turned off the tube or kicked in the screen, you came after our children. 'By passing the No Child Left Behind Act,' you said, 'We are regularly testing every child ... and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing.'
You said it ... and then that little tongue came out; that weird way you stick your tongue out between your lips like the little kid who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat. I saw that snakey tongue dart out and I thought, 'He knows.'
And what you know, Mr. Bush, is this: you've ordered this testing to hunt down, identify and target for destruction the hopes of millions of children you find too expensive, too heavy a burden, to educate.
Deep into your State of the Siege lecture, long after sensible adults had turned off the tube or kicked in the screen, you came after our children. 'By passing the No Child Left Behind Act,' you said, 'We are regularly testing every child ... and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing.'
You said it ... and then that little tongue came out; that weird way you stick your tongue out between your lips like the little kid who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat. I saw that snakey tongue dart out and I thought, 'He knows.'
And what you know, Mr. Bush, is this: you've ordered this testing to hunt down, identify and target for destruction the hopes of millions of children you find too expensive, too heavy a burden, to educate.
EAT YOUR HEART OUT
Congo's Pygmies allege cannibalism crimes
Army, rebel and tribal fighters - some believing the Pygmies are less than human or that eating the flesh would give them magic power - have been pursuing them in forests, killing them and eating their flesh, the activists told a news conference Wednesday.
There have been reports of markets for Pygmy flesh, the representatives alleged.
'In living memory, we have seen cruelty, massacres, genocide, but we have never seen human beings hunted and eaten literally as though they were game animals, as has recently happened,' said Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of the Mbuti Pygmies in Congo.
Army, rebel and tribal fighters - some believing the Pygmies are less than human or that eating the flesh would give them magic power - have been pursuing them in forests, killing them and eating their flesh, the activists told a news conference Wednesday.
There have been reports of markets for Pygmy flesh, the representatives alleged.
'In living memory, we have seen cruelty, massacres, genocide, but we have never seen human beings hunted and eaten literally as though they were game animals, as has recently happened,' said Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of the Mbuti Pygmies in Congo.
EXIT WOUNDS
Hit and run trifecta for 18-year-old New Yorker
The black car hit her first, striking Natalie Guzman as she tried to cross a Queens street to buy a bag of potato chips. The 18-year-old managed to get to her feet before she was hit again, by a white car.
About four minutes later, her friends dove for cover as a black sport utility vehicle hurtled through the 30 mph zone at an estimated 80 mph.
Guzman, who could not move, was killed instantly.
Police searched for the three hit-and-run drivers Wednesday in the kind of crime that tends to reinforce New Yorkers' reputation as a cold-hearted lot.
The black car hit her first, striking Natalie Guzman as she tried to cross a Queens street to buy a bag of potato chips. The 18-year-old managed to get to her feet before she was hit again, by a white car.
About four minutes later, her friends dove for cover as a black sport utility vehicle hurtled through the 30 mph zone at an estimated 80 mph.
Guzman, who could not move, was killed instantly.
Police searched for the three hit-and-run drivers Wednesday in the kind of crime that tends to reinforce New Yorkers' reputation as a cold-hearted lot.
SEX SELLS
Tokyo calls for ban on sale of used schoolgirls' knickers
Japanese use the term rori-kon, for Lolita Complex, to describe the widespread obsession with schoolgirls among the country's male population, who pay about £200 for sex with them.
"Compensated dating" -- the euphemism used by teens for prostitution -- is recognised as a nationwide phenomenon, with girls often using the money to buy goods such as Burberry scarves and Louis Vuitton handbags.
This month Officials in Tokyo sought to stop men buying schoolgirls' used underwear as the city tackles teenage prostitution.
By-laws will be amended to prohibit sex shops from buying underwear and other clothing from girls under 16 for resale to men. The shops also sell swimsuits, gym knickers and schoolgirl uniforms, which resemble sailor outfits.
Japanese use the term rori-kon, for Lolita Complex, to describe the widespread obsession with schoolgirls among the country's male population, who pay about £200 for sex with them.
"Compensated dating" -- the euphemism used by teens for prostitution -- is recognised as a nationwide phenomenon, with girls often using the money to buy goods such as Burberry scarves and Louis Vuitton handbags.
This month Officials in Tokyo sought to stop men buying schoolgirls' used underwear as the city tackles teenage prostitution.
By-laws will be amended to prohibit sex shops from buying underwear and other clothing from girls under 16 for resale to men. The shops also sell swimsuits, gym knickers and schoolgirl uniforms, which resemble sailor outfits.
SMART BUT DUMB
A brief history of misery
Stephen Hawking, possibly the smartest man on wheels, apparently made a big mistake ... marrying a Kathy Bates impersonator. But still, he does get to have weird sex with her.
Stephen Hawking, possibly the smartest man on wheels, apparently made a big mistake ... marrying a Kathy Bates impersonator. But still, he does get to have weird sex with her.
STAR WARS
Militarization of space contravenes international COPUOS agreement
According to the Space Commands Strategic Master Plan, by 2025, the US will have developed the capability to strike any target on Earth within minutes. The Pentagon's Star Wars weapons include laser-armed satellites. Also on the drawing board are un-manned satellite gunships that would smash earthly targets with non-explosive tungsten rods. Such projectiles would be so hard and traveling so fast that they could penetrate and destroy a four-story underground bunker.
Sean OKeefe, the former navy secretary and current chief of NASA, has said that every NASA mission from now on will be dual use (have both military and civilian purposes at the same time).
The legal impediment to the U.S. conquest of space was overcome in 2001 when President George W. Bush canceled the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia, which prohibited the testing of space-based anti-ballistic missiles.
In January 1967, a treaty drafted by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was signed by the US -- and the British, French, Soviets, and Spanish. The treaty forbade any activity that could harmfully interfere with the peaceful space activities of other countries, including the deployment of orbital WMDs, the establishment of military bases on the moon, or the testing of any type of weapons in outer space.
According to the Space Commands Strategic Master Plan, by 2025, the US will have developed the capability to strike any target on Earth within minutes. The Pentagon's Star Wars weapons include laser-armed satellites. Also on the drawing board are un-manned satellite gunships that would smash earthly targets with non-explosive tungsten rods. Such projectiles would be so hard and traveling so fast that they could penetrate and destroy a four-story underground bunker.
Sean OKeefe, the former navy secretary and current chief of NASA, has said that every NASA mission from now on will be dual use (have both military and civilian purposes at the same time).
The legal impediment to the U.S. conquest of space was overcome in 2001 when President George W. Bush canceled the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia, which prohibited the testing of space-based anti-ballistic missiles.
In January 1967, a treaty drafted by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was signed by the US -- and the British, French, Soviets, and Spanish. The treaty forbade any activity that could harmfully interfere with the peaceful space activities of other countries, including the deployment of orbital WMDs, the establishment of military bases on the moon, or the testing of any type of weapons in outer space.
PROPAGANDA CENTRAL
So-called "journalists" just corporate spin-meisters
Tuning in to the news these days feels like being swept out to sea on a rogue tide of illogic and denial. These so-called "journalists" seem to be broadcasting from an alternate universe where insanity is logical, the impossible is reasonable, and the obvious is totally invisible. They create mountains out of molehills to obscure the horizon and blind us to the future. They distract us from the present by spinning us so hard we can't tell up from down. They rob us of our past by polluting the very waters of history with official lies.
[Content warning: The link above opens a page containing highly smutty ad banners.]
Tuning in to the news these days feels like being swept out to sea on a rogue tide of illogic and denial. These so-called "journalists" seem to be broadcasting from an alternate universe where insanity is logical, the impossible is reasonable, and the obvious is totally invisible. They create mountains out of molehills to obscure the horizon and blind us to the future. They distract us from the present by spinning us so hard we can't tell up from down. They rob us of our past by polluting the very waters of history with official lies.
[Content warning: The link above opens a page containing highly smutty ad banners.]
THAR SHE BLOWS
Whale explodes in Taiwanese city
A dead sperm whale has exploded while being delivered to a research centre near the southwestern city of Tainan.
Passers-by and cars were soaked in blood (and sperm, possibly) and body parts were sprayed over a road after the bursting of the whale, which was being carried on a trailer.
The whale had died earlier on a beach and had been collected so its remains could be used for educational purposes. A marine biologist blamed the explosion on pressure from gases building up in the mammal as it began to decompose.
The whale attracted a lot of onlookers both before and after it exploded.
OIL WARS
How long will the US be in Iraq?
How long will the US be in Iraq? Ask rather, how long will money flow from the oil spigot? And then ask how much American blood and treasure it took to get it flowing, right into the wallets of Cheney's pals and Bush's supporters.
Everyone under the command of Tommy Franks was effectively part of a mercenary expedition, employed at taxpayer expense and deployed in the service of 'American interests,' i.e., DubyaCo.
There is a reason why all the Dumb-Ass Dubya jokes have been drying up lately: people have stopped laughing at Bush because he's no longer the village idiot. He's the village tyrant now.
How long will the US be in Iraq? Ask rather, how long will money flow from the oil spigot? And then ask how much American blood and treasure it took to get it flowing, right into the wallets of Cheney's pals and Bush's supporters.
Everyone under the command of Tommy Franks was effectively part of a mercenary expedition, employed at taxpayer expense and deployed in the service of 'American interests,' i.e., DubyaCo.
There is a reason why all the Dumb-Ass Dubya jokes have been drying up lately: people have stopped laughing at Bush because he's no longer the village idiot. He's the village tyrant now.
PROPAGANDA CENTRAL
Dean gazumping illustrates awesome destructive power of corporate media
If a mildly progressive, Internet-driven, young white middle class-centered, movement-like campaign such as Dean’s -- flush with money derived from unconventional sources, backed by significant sections of labor, reinforced by big name endorsements and surging with upward momentum -- can be derailed in a matter of weeks at the whim of corporate media, then all of us are in deep trouble.
The Dean beat-down should signal an intense reassessment of media’s role in the American power structure.
If a mildly progressive, Internet-driven, young white middle class-centered, movement-like campaign such as Dean’s -- flush with money derived from unconventional sources, backed by significant sections of labor, reinforced by big name endorsements and surging with upward momentum -- can be derailed in a matter of weeks at the whim of corporate media, then all of us are in deep trouble.
The Dean beat-down should signal an intense reassessment of media’s role in the American power structure.
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